Moon Child
by Ebenbild
Summary: Fenrir meets the moon in the middle of the Battle of Hogwarts. It's the moon who changed him, the moon who guided him, the moon who chose him - and now, the moon has come to guide him home.


_Author's Note: Written for Pride of Portree Bonus-rounds._

_Bonus-round 2: Magical Illness_

_Team: Pride of Portree_

_Position: Chaser 2_

_Prompt: Lycanthropy_

_Additional Prompts:_

(quote) "Life is a terminal condition. We're all going to die." Kris Carr

(quote) "The mind and body are not separate. what affects one, affects the other." Anonymous

(song) "Be Still" by The Killers

_Word Count: 4,133_

_Betas: Claude Amelia Song_

_**Disclaimer**__: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

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sSsSsSsSs

_**MOON-CHILD**_

sSs

"Life is a terminal condition. We're all going to die." - Kris Carr

sSs

He was on the prowl.

On the prowl through Hogwarts - and people fell to his claws.

Wherever he could, he sowed grief, destruction and death.

A little boy in his way; he bit him dead.

A young woman in his way; he maimed her with his claws.

And maybe he would have continued, just like that, if the moon hadn't shown herself to him.

The moon stepped out of the rubble that had once been part of the school and stepped in his way so that he couldn't kill the woman he'd maimed.

"Leave her be, wolf-born," she said, her eyes dreamy and her white-blond hair reflecting the sun. "You've raged enough."

'Never,' he wanted to say. 'It will never be enough!'

But her silver eyes quieted his words before they could leave his mouth.

"Moon," he said instead, his voice lengthening the word as if it was attempting to howl it - and maybe it was and he had just forgotten how to actually do a proper wolf's howl over time.

"You've raged enough," she repeated, but her eyes were soft.

'I know you,' her eyes told him. 'I know your heart - and maybe, just maybe, I know you better than you yourself.'

And no matter how much he wanted to deny the unspoken claim of her eyes - maybe, _just maybe_, they were right...

sSs

"Life is a terminal condition," his father had always told him. " No matter what happens, in the end, we're all going to die."

So being told that he was dying wasn't that surprising to him when he was small. More surprising was the fact that his father was fighting it.

"I'm your father," his father said when asked. "Parents shouldn't bury their children - and I will do everything in my power to ensure that I don't have to… even if that means to be reborn and get you reborn with all your memories as well."

And no matter what else could be said about his father - _vicious, dangerous,_ _**trickster **_\- he was stubborn as hell.

When his father wanted to, he'd always find a way...

Waking to the moon was his first memory.

His fingers had curled into claws, his nails unnaturally long and sharp.

"Shh," a man said, sitting next to his bed. "You're safe. It was just a nightmare. You're safe, my child."

"Father!" he had whispered, his claws finding his father's robes and burying themselves in it. "Father, please!"

His breathing was harsh.

He couldn't get oxygen in his lungs and his lungs were burning.

The moon was standing next to his father in the body of a woman and looking down on him.

"He's turning," she said. "His body is answering my call."

His father's emerald green eyes settled on her, but there was no accusation in his gaze.

The Moon raised her hand and carded through his father's black locks.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"He lives," his father replied. "He lives and that is all I care about."

"He will be forever trapped by my call," she replied and his father shrugged.

"The mind and body are not separate. What affects one, affects the other," he replied. "I will ensure that his mind and body are strengthened. It won't be a curse for him - I won't let him suffer. He's alive - and that's all I care about."

It was then that he understood that his father loved him more than anything in this world.

"Father," he whispered and his father turned and smiled at him softly.

"I will help you," he said, determined. "I will help you so that you learn how to control the call."

And he did, too.

It would take years, but in the end, his turning wouldn't be controlled by the moon any longer.

sSs

"I'm a monster," he told the Moon in front of him. "I will never rage enough."

He might only have said it to object her gaze, but he meant it anyway.

She frowned at him.

"You're one of my children," she countered. "My children aren't monsters, they never have been."

He scoffed at that, his claws dripping with blood.

"I'm an abomination who doesn't follow you like everyone else who is like me, does," he countered.

"You're your father's child," she countered, amused. "I've always known you would be different. Your father has always been different as well, after all."

"He's my father," he argued. "He was never like the rest of our family… never like my uncle, my grandfather-"

"He wasn't born into their family," the Moon replied amused. "But I understand what you mean. And no matter what you think, you're far too much like him to ever be common."

Then she looked at the woman to her feet.

"And that's the reason why I think you've raged enough." Her dreamy eyes found his. "You're more like him - not a monster, no matter what everybody else has said."

And he had to admit that maybe part of his reasons had always been the opinions others had of him...

sSs

"He's a monster!" His uncle had said when he was forced to shift under the moon in front of him for the first time. "He's going to bring the end of civilisation if he stays!"

"He's a monster, Loki!" His grandfather said when he saw him for the first time under the light of the moon. "If he keeps his freedom, he will kill me sometime in the future!"

"Not a monster," his father objected. "A child - a child like any other child."

But neither uncle nor grandfather wanted to listen.

"Murderer," they called him, even though he hadn't done anything, yet. "Killer! Destroyer! World-ender!"

And no matter how often the father objected and tried to step in, in the end, uncle and grandfather kept their opinion of him, no matter what.

"More beast than man!"

And like a beast, his grandfather's war-hero captured and bound him.

He fought his capture, even went so far as to shift into the wolf willingly for the first time in his life to defend himself.

He defended himself and in the end Týr, the war-hero, lost his hand.

Yet, no matter what he did, he wasn't strong enough.

"I'm sorry," his father begged. "I'm so sorry!"

His father had been held back in the grip of his uncle, too weak to free himself and yet fighting with all his might.

"I'm sorry!"

And no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't reassure his father that he didn't blame him.

'Life is a terminal condition,' he wanted to remind the man. 'We're all going to die.'

And while no parent should bury their children, sometimes there was no other way - and yet, instead of dying, he ended up shackled and restricted to the form of the beast he had learned to live with over time.

So he lived, forced into the body of the beast - and the beast shackled and quietened with an iron rod through its snout.

sSs

"What are you doing here, Moon?" he asked the moon in girl-frame in front of him. "Why are you defending the weak from my claws?"

"Because they weren't the ones who hurt you, Lokison," she replied. "You might still hurt - but they aren't the ones who are at fault."

He just scoffed at her for that.

"What do you know, Moon?" He countered. "Tell me - have you ever suffered beneath them? Have you ever watched them and what they do?! I did - and I tell you: they don't deserve your mercy!"

She crooked her head and looked at him thoughtfully at that.

"This is your justification?" She asked, sounding more interested than offended. "That they _hurt_ people?"

He stared at her for a second, then he turned away, unable to look into her silvery eyes any longer.

"They took my cub," he replied, instead.

And inwardly he mused if he should feel guilty for taking theirs instead.

sSs

It took centuries to free himself, but when he did, all of the worlds had changed.

Midgard had changed.

It was Midgard he saw first, after he managed to free himself from his shackles.

He had fallen the moment he was free - fallen, long and deep - just to end up in Midgard at the end.

When he woke, he had been weak.

His body had been barely bigger than the body of a normal wolf and he had been unable to change it into anything but the form it had been forced into so many years ago.

What was worse was the body had been twisted through his fall and what once might have been male and strong, was now female and soft.

Yet, after centuries of torture, he wasn't in his right mind and while he _knew_ his body was wrong - his tortured mind couldn't comprehend how it could be wrong when it had never truly felt right in the first place.

It would take years until his mind finally comprehended what else had changed with the body that had never felt right in the first place.

"Moon," he begged instead. "Please, Moon, give me a purpose!"

And she answered because she always answered him.

"You're a female now," she said. "A female's purpose is to be a mother - is that what you want? Do you want to be a mother like your father was a mother once?"

He thought about it, just for a moment.

"Yes," he finally agreed. "I am my father's cub. I will be a mother if he was once one as well."

_So he was._

_Sköll_, he would call one of his cubs, and _Romulus_, because he couldn't stand the idea of his cub having just one name when he had been called many in his life.

_Hati Hróðvitnisson_, he would call the other, or _Remus_ when he felt like it.

It didn't matter to him - he was a wolf after all; and while he knew that he had been once something else, his mind was too tired to remember.

"You're mine," he told his cubs. "You're mine and you will always be."

"Even if we die, Mother?" Remus asked him with huge eyes and a body so different, so much more naked and pink than his own.

"Even if you die," he agreed. "Life is a terminal condition. We're all going to die."

And when he said those words, they sounded familiar, even if he couldn't remember why.

Like that, he, now she, wet-nursed and raised them - right until that time people came and took them from him.

They took them and left him weak and without propose.

"My cubs!" He begged, his voice a ragged barking-sound. "Give them back! You didn't truly want them - but _I! __**I**_ _did!_ So give them back! Give them back so that I can be a mother for them!"

Yet, he was left alone, abandoned and too weak to go after them.

And maybe he would have died then, maybe he would have given up - but he was his father's son, and no matter what, his father didn't give up.

_So he didn't either._

Instead, he forced himself to become stronger and stronger until finally he was able to shift back into human form.

The first shift was agonizing.

It was as if everything that had been twisted in his body with the fall was forcefully put to right again.

He shifted and when he opened his eyes again he wasn't only human but male and strong again.

"Give them back!" He growled and left his cave to find them.

_His cubs._

_**No**__, his children - because like him now, they were human, and human had children not cubs._

He came too late.

He found them just in time to watch one of his cubs trying to kill the other - and succeed.

It broke his heart… and it broke Romulus as well, because while he had shifted into a wolf before, he could never again after.

sSs

There was sympathy in the Moon's eyes, as if she understood all too well what he was talking about.

"It's hard to be a mother," she said softly. "It's even harder when your children die before their time. When you have to bury them instead of them burying you."

He didn't answer at that, instead he stared at the young woman behind the Moon.

"Why do you shield her?" He asked bitterly. "She's human. She's part of those who hurt me - so why don't you let me rage against her?!"

"Because you aren't a monster," the Moon replied, her dreamy voice full of conviction. "You aren't a demon, a monster or worse. You're a wolf. You were born to carry a witch on your back."

He wanted to snarl at that and correct her - but he knew he didn't have a leg to stand on.

As much as he hated humans, he had never hated magicals in the same regard.

Instead, he had pitied them.

He had pitied them, because while he was a wolf and half-wild, he had always known what he was.

A lot of magicals, on the other hand, thought they were human, were raised by humans, until the day they displayed their magic and were outed as _other_.

For the most part, this ended with the death of the magical - and therefore their fates were worse than his…

sSs

"For your deeds, you will burn, witch!"

The words were spoken by a fat, old man - most likely the mayor of the village he had entered just the day before.

He turned and looked at the commotion in the marketplace.

There was a young woman tied to a stake. Her blonde hair flew like a flag in the wind and her clothing was ripped.

She looked half-wild and yet so free.

It nearly hurt his eyes to see a wild spirit like hers tied down and on the way to death.

"_We're the masters of our own fate, son - and we're only the monsters we make ourselves,"_ his father had told him once and for all he had been banished as a monster, he still believed his father's words. "_It doesn't matter what others believe us to be, as long as we live our lives to our fullest. Remember: Life is a terminal condition. We're all going to die._"

_He wondered if his father had already reached the end of the way._

_He wondered if his father was dead._

His eyes found the wild ones of the woman and for the first time in a long time, he decided to give somebody else a chance.

Without a thought, his face lengthened, and within seconds he dropped on all four legs, his teeth vicious and long.

He bared them and snarled.

Being a wolf whose shoulder was at least two heads above an average male human's head, definitely helped when he decimated the people who had thought to kill one of their own.

In the end, he left the village with a blond-haired witch on his back.

"Who are you?" she asked him when they were safe.

Above them, the moon was shining and nudging him to tell the truth.

He kept his mouth shut, but the woman in front of him didn't seem offended.

"My name is Helga; Helga Hufflepuff and I'm a teacher in a school for magicals just up the north," she declared. "And I have never seen someone like you."

"Someone like me?" he asked.

"Someone who can change against the moon," she replied. "I've seen others - but they all were bound by the moon."

For a moment, he looked up to the moon, then he returned her gaze, finally willing to actually speak with her, now that she had proven more curious than dangerous to him.

"Fenrir," he said, using his name for the first time in a long, long time. "I'm Fenrir Lokison."

She smiled at that.

"It's nice to meet you, Fenrir," she replied before reaching out to him. "I think I will call you Greyback."

He scoffed at that, but he had never had just one name, so Greyback was as good as any other.

She seemed to see those thoughts because she just grinned.

"Fenrir," she said. "It's a bit too much like the legend. Like Ragnarök and Loki. People will fear you if you use that name."

"What does it matter?" he asked. "It's not as if I plan to tell anybody else."

She just smiled and didn't answer.

Instead, she asked a question of her own: "Will you come with me?"

He had always felt pity for the magicals who lived in a world so dangerous to them and Helga - she reminded him of his father: all wildness, all power and determination mixed with a mean streak of mischief.

It hurt.

And it soothed him at the same time.

And he should have said no, _should say no, __**should...**_

"Somebody has to look after you, don't they?" he countered.

She smiled.

She would be the first rider, _his _first rider but not his last for long.

sSs

"I'm not a mule!" He denied the Moon in front of him. "I'm not somebody you can ride just because you want to!"

The Moon looked at him in sad understanding.

"The mind and body are not separate. What affects one, affects the other," she said. "And your mind was broken long ago."

He turned his head away, not denying it.

"They took your cub," the Moon continued. "They took you and banished you. They tried to make you the monster they saw you as - and no matter how long you resisted, in the end, they succeeded, didn't they?"

He growled, his eyes searching hers to stare her down.

"Nobody ever succeeded in changing me in a way I didn't want to!" he objected.

"They took your cub," she countered. "And they didn't do it only once. They did it twice."

And no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't object to her words this time around.

sSs

His cub had been dead for centuries, millennia even.

He had never expected to see it again - so seeing it running around the garden of a magical home was like a punch in the gut.

_His cub._

Not older than four and yet, he could already scent the wolf slowly but surely surfacing.

His curse might not have saved the cub the last time he had been born and was dying - but it definitely had followed his cub in his next life.

"Life is a terminal condition. We're all going to die," he whispered to himself and maybe he would have been able to walk away from his cub.

Maybe he would have been able to leave his cub in the hands of his new parents, safe and happy and maybe a bit more wolfish with every passing year.

Maybe, he would have been able to ignore that he had been mother once, but then, the man stepped out of the house and Fenrir… Fenrir _knew _him.

"_Soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death,_" had been the man's description of werewolves in the past - and Fenrir couldn't leave the cub with him… not when the cub would be more wolf year after year.

So Fenrir did the only thing he could think of: he went and bit the child, ready to take him with him and save him.

It was the mother who kept him from taking the boy.

"Remus!" she cried and her voice sounded so broken, so much like Fenrir's own when he had lost his cub for the first time…

"_**Remus!**_"

And no matter rebirth or not, he was still the cub's mother and he couldn't watch somebody else suffer the same he had once.

So he turned away from his child, praying with all his might that Remus's mother would forgive him for hurrying along the curse that had slumbered in the boy all along…

sSs

"The second time, I gave him up," he corrected the Moon and his eyes, ears and nose searched the battlefield around them for the smell of his cub. "I gave him up, knowing that he wouldn't remember and that I would never get him back."

She smiled her tired slightly sad smile at him again.

"And yet, you rage against them for taking him anyway," she countered and he bared his teeth.

"They're biased against him!" He countered heatedly. "They close him out, leave him in the cold! I can't stand by and watch any longer! They've done it with all the others who bear a curse similar to mine and they've done it to me! I couldn't keep watching them doing it to _**my son**_!"

His fists clenched, his nails drawing blood from his palm.

"I'm his mother! And if I have to go and join a megalomaniac, so be it! If I have to lose rhyme and reason, _so be it_! As long as he's safe, as long as he doesn't have to suffer any longer, _I don't_ _**care!**_"

The Moon smiled at him at that.

"I know," she agreed. "I've always known. I'm sorry, Fenrir. I'm so sorry that I wasn't there."

With that, the girl with pale hair and dreamy eyes dissolved into nothingness, showing him that their discussion had been a part of his imagination all along, and he found himself in front of the young woman he had maimed again.

His claws were still dripping with her blood and there was nothing stopping him from killing her but the short gaze he had shared with the Moon over the battlefield and his own memories.

"Life is a terminal condition. We're all going to die," a voice whispered in his memories. It sounded like his father's. "The mind and body are not separate. What affects one, affects the other."

But before he could step away from the young woman, a spell hit him from behind and a crystal ball knocked him out.

sSs

He found himself in a cave.

There was a man shackled to the stone and a woman standing behind his head, holding a bowl that stopped the venom of the snake in the ceiling from reaching the man's face.

"Father," Fenrir said, suddenly feeling small and vulnerable again.

"Fenrir," his father replied and looked at him with tired eyes.

"I… what?" Fenrir couldn't help but stutter at the state his father was in.

His father just smiled.

"I've always known they would turn on me," he said, his voice sad. "I've known the moment they named you a monster."

Fenrir turned his head away from his father.

"Then why did you stay?" he asked.

His father just smiled at him.

"The mind and body are not separate. What affects one, affects the other," he replied as if it was the answer to Fenrir's question. "My mind couldn't bear the thought of leaving everything behind and hide."

_Couldn't bear the thought of leaving my children without a chance for them to find me again_ \- not that his father would ever say that.

"So I stayed even if I knew the consequences would be dire," his father's mouth twitched a bit self-depreciating. "But don't worry, my child, my suffering long since ended."

Fenrir's eyes snapped up to meet his father's.

"What-?!"

"Life is a terminal condition," his father reminded him softly. "We're all going to die."

Fenrir swallowed hard at that.

"Will I see you again if I do?" he asked instead.

His father just smiled.

"Always," he agreed. "_Always_ \- because you will _**always**_ be my son."

sSs

It was then that Fenrir woke.

The battle had paused but he knew that it would start again within the hour.

A girl was kneeling in front of him.

Pale hair reflecting the sun and dreamy, silvery eyes.

"Moon," he whispered, a nearly silent howl of a wolf towards the night-sky.

She smiled at him.

"Luna," she corrected. "I'm Luna in this life."

At that, he reached out and touched her pale cheek with his dirty claws.

"In my next life - will you be there?" He asked, hesitatingly.

She just smiled at him.

"I'm friends with your father," she agreed. "I will never leave you."

And he smiled at her.

He still smiled when he was finally confronted by Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom an hour later.

The last thing he saw was the eyes of the Moon when she took the life they left him to spare him Azkaban.

His eyes closed.

sSs

And with a scream, his eyes opened again.

He was fighting his blanket, shivering in the dark.

"Shh," a voice whispered and a hand carded through his hair. "Shh, you're safe."

"Father," he voice was choked.

"I'm here," his father agreed. "Just like your siblings are. Don't be afraid, we're all safe and we're all here, James."

And with a sob, James buried his head in his father's lap.

"Just a nightmare," his father assured him. "Just a nightmare."

_Yes, just a nightmare._

James's claws curled around his father's chest.

_**Just a nightmare.**_

"You're not a monster," his father's voice whispered in the dark. "You're just a child. My child. _**Always**_ _my child_."

And James Sirius Potter believed the man who was once Loki - like he always had.

sSs

"Life is a terminal condition. We're all going to die." - Kris Carr

sSs

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_Well, never thought I write about Fenrir... but here it is. _

_I hope you liked it._

_Ebenbild_


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